PROTESTING CHINA’S EDUCATION

HONG KONG 
Tens of thousands took to the streets here Sunday to protest the introduction of Chinese national education in Hong Kong schools, a day after the city’s education minister warned such demonstrations would not stop or delay the process.

Victoria Park, the traditional starting point for the city’s mass protests, was a sea of umbrellas as parents shielded their children from the sun. There have been at least two demonstrations since June: Hong Kong’s annual vigil for the victims of the 1989 crackdown in Beijing, and a protest on the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong’s transfer from British control to Chinese rule. That protest coincided with the swearing-in of Hong Kong’s new Beijing-backed leader, Leung Chun-ying, on July 1.

Many felt the changes were rushed through without public consultation.

While organizers told Hong Kong’s public broadcaster, RTHK, 90,000 participated in the protest, the police put the figure at 32,000.

The new curriculum would be similar to the so-called patriotic education taught in mainland China. The materials, including a handbook entitled “The China Model,” describe the Communist Party as “progressive, selfless and united” and criticize multiparty systems, even though Hong Kong itself has multiple political parties.

Critics liken the curriculum to brainwashing and say that it glosses over major events, such as the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. It will be introduced into some primary schools in September and be mandatory for all public schools by 2016.

Talks between the education minister, Eddie Ng, and the National Education Parents’ Concern Group fell apart on Saturday. Ng later denied the curriculum was brainwashing.

One point of contention is that many of the city’s governing elite send their children to the West or to expensive international schools, which will be exempt from the national education. The curriculum will be mandatory for public schools.

Before the protest, Jiang Yudui of the China Civic Education Promotion Association of Hong Kong added fuel to the fire when he told Hong Kong’s residents the curriculum should “wash their brains.”

“A brain needs washing if there is a problem, just as clothes need washing if they’re dirty and a kidney needs washing if it’s sick,” he said, according to local media.

In response, protesters waved flags showing a cartoon brain with a line crossed through it. “No thought control! Preserve one country, two systems!” they chanted, referring to the agreement that gives Hong Kong political rights not allowed on the mainland.

A group of parents and their children waved a poster reading: “Our previous generations came here to escape the Communist Party, don’t let the next generation return to the grip of the demon.”

“I’m Chinese, but China is not the Communist Party,” said Luke Ng, 16, a student in a local Roman Catholic high school.

He said he joined Sunday’s protest because he thinks national education will be a form of political indoctrination focused on the party’s achievements and blind to catastrophes that claimed tens of millions of Chinese lives in the 1950s and ’60s. “Germans are taught about Nazi crimes, they know what happened. In China, students only learn how to praise the party,” he said.